Why Poker Players Should Try Bridge (by Robert Preston)

 

There are some people who play both poker and bridge, but many more who play one or the other of these card games exclusively. For these people, it may never have occurred to them that their game may not be the best. Here are some reasons why poker players may want to switch to bridge.

 

Bridge over Poker: Financially Safer

 

In poker, you can get an online poker bonus and choose almost any stakes you want to play, but there’s still going to be an indeterminate amount of money on the line. Poker is not interesting without money at stake. You can play bridge for money too, but that is not required for the enjoyment of the game. You can still challenge yourself at bridge by playing in duplicate bridge tournaments.

 

Bridge over Poker: Team Effort

 

In poker, it’s every man for himself, which, if you’re a friendly, social person, can get uncomfortable. In bridge, you are obviously trying to beat an opponent, but you also have a partner, so you always have a friend and an opportunity for teamwork in the game. Of course, you’ll need to make sure your partner is someone with whom you can get along and preferably someone easy-going. An intense partner can be difficult when things are going badly or you make a mistake.

 

Bridge over Poker: New Challenges

 

Bridge provides a whole new set of challenges for poker players. If you feel like you’ve learned as much about poker as you can or want to, you might try switching over to bridge. This will open up a completely new world of concepts to learn and try.

 

Bridge and Poker (by Danny Kleinman)

 

In Chapter 1 of Why You Lose at Bridge (the best bridge book ever), S.J. Simon says, “Don’t let anybody tell you Poker is a game of chance.  Poker heads the list of card games of skill; it is not as interesting as Contract Bridge, but the element of chance is smaller.”

 

Simon goes on to say that poker offers the professional maximal opportunity to exploit his skill, a skill that is mainly mathematical, despite the acknowledged value of “psychology” (knowing that “Mrs. Winklestein always fiddles with her diamond ring when she is bluffing”).  Simon concludes, “A great game, Poker.  I must learn it some time.”

 

All that comes with the first advice Simon offers to bridge players ... the three key questions that poker players constantly ask: “How much do I risk?  How much can I win?  What are my chances of winning?”  He urges bridge players to ask the same questions before making a call or a play.

 

A good poker player who turns to bridge thus has a head start, his habit of asking Simon’s three questions.  Both games involve probabilities, but they are not the “a priori” probabilities of pure mathematicians, else the best mathematicians would be the best players of both games.  They are the hard (if not impossible) to calculate conditional probabilities: not (for example) “What are the chances that Mrs. Winklestein has a royal flush in spades?” but “What are the chances that she has a royal flush in spades given that she has bet as she did (at the poker table) or bid as she did (at the bridge table)?”

 

Here is where a good poker player can outdo his counterparts at bridge: by “reading” the cards of his opponents from their actions.  That is only half of the story, however.  The other half is by avoiding the “tells” that enable others to read his own cards.  This means keeping a “poker face” at the bridge table (at least until there are no more relevant plays in the deal) and maintaining a tempo and demeanor that give no information to anyone.

 

Sometimes bridge players talk loosely about “playing poker” at the bridge table.  By that they mean making daring bids that may be based on sound values but may also be bluffs (called “psychs” in bridge parlance): gross misrepresentations of values that a bid shows but the bidder actually lacks.  However, the bluffing skills of poker have only the tiniest role in bridge ... because bridge is a partnership game par excellence.  Although in bridge you have two opponents and only one partner to deceive, the harm that a deceived partner can do to you vastly exceeds the gain you can expect from fooling your opponents---who after all believe each other’s calls and see the high cards they have in their own hands.  Note also that attempting to mislead opponents by deceptive mannerisms, which is a perfectly legitimate tactic in poker, or by concealment or misrepresentation of your partnership understandings, is strictly against the rules of bridge.  You must only deceive your opponents (and likewise inform your partner) by the calls and plays that you make, not by your manner of making them. 

 

If you, as a poker player, take up bridge, do not try to “play poker” at the bridge table. Yes, there are gambits that can succeed, but they are rare, and it takes an experienced bridge expert to know when they are favored by the odds.  You will have opportunity enough for deception in the play of your cards on about 25% of all deals, the deals in which you are declarer, when your partner is “the dummy” who has no role in the play and you have two opponents to deceive.  Even then, opportunities for effective deception are rare.  Far more often, and often overlooked by inexpert declarers, are the opportunities afforded by concealment.  Many declarers play their high cards early, in effect exposing their hands for the defenders to see.  A good poker player declaring a contract in bridge will know to lose the tricks he has to lose early, and wind up taking extra tricks at the end with assets he has concealed from the start of the play.